Supporting Language & Content Learning in Math
Patricia Segura, a 9th-grade English teacher at Fremont High School in Oakland, CA, allows viewers to spend a day in her classroom of “newcomer students.” A “newcomer student” is one who has lived in the United States for less than a year, and typically serve students from various grade levels. Segura walks viewers through the importance of supporting student… Read More ›
Redesigning School Accountability and Support: Progress in Pioneering States
In a report presented by the Learning Policy Institute and the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE), “Redesigning School Accountability and Support: Progress in Pioneering States” examines the variety of ways these 10 states – including New Hampshire and Vermont – have tackled the challenge of redesigning their accountability systems to create educational… Read More ›
Getting Creative About Credit: Expanding Opportunities With and For Urban High School Students
This post originally appeared on the New England Secondary School Consortium on behalf of Great Schools Partnership. In Woonsocket, Rhode Island, the Blackstone River runs deep. If you visit the city’s downtown, you can’t help but drive alongside the waterway or crisscross it via a bridge or two. It’s everywhere. But as with anything you… Read More ›
The Culture of Data Use Workshop Toolkit
The Culture of Data Use Workshop Toolkit helps school and district teams apply research to practice as they establish and support a culture of data use in their educational setting. The field-tested workshop toolkit guides teams through a set of structured activities to develop an understanding of data-use research in schools and to analyze examples… Read More ›
Five Things for Big Districts to Think About
This post shares a few thoughts the author has developed on how big districts can make the transition to competency-based education. Much of the first wave of districts making the transition to competency-based education have been small districts. They’ve been able to engage their communities at the district level. They often asked teachers to vote before they… Read More ›
Making the Shift from Community Engagement to Community Collaboration
This article explores how leaders are helping to pilot a new way of working with the community that embraces collaboration in an effort to shift the tide. Over time, community engagement has largely become a one-way mechanism for districts to push out information about initiatives and programs into the local community. Along the way, a… Read More ›
Blended, Project-Based, and Social Emotional Learning at Thrive Public Schools
This article explores how Thrive Public Schools in San Diego is creating a student-centered learning environment for its students. Thrive, a 200 student K-8 school, has a makerspace where students build stuff and work out marble trajectories, and gives a glimpse into the future of learning—blended, personalized, and competency-based. The article includes tools, ideas for implementation… Read More ›
Scholars: Better Gauges Needed for ‘Mindset,’ ‘Grit’
This article, explores the concepts of “growth mindset” and ‘grit,” the reasons why these concepts are vital to modern education, and the potential errors in research methods when identifying these qualities in students. Growth mindset—the belief that intelligence and other skills are not fixed, but can be improved through effort— and grit—the ability to sustain interest over a long period… Read More ›
Deeper Learning Under ESSA: Seven Priorities
This post originally appeared on Education Week’s Learning Deeply blog on behalf of Jobs for the Future. Authored by Rafael Heller, principal policy analyst for Jobs for the Future. Ask three policy wonks what they think of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), and you’ll likely get four or five answers. At recent meetings and… Read More ›
Student-Centered Learning Opportunities for Adolescent English Learners in Flipped Classrooms
This study from the University of Massachusetts-Boston and the Nellie Mae Education Foundation examines how flipped learning can be utilized to improve the language and content acquisition of adolescent English language learners. As schools look to raise standards and close achievement gaps, they need effective strategies for serving English language learners, the fastest-growing segment of… Read More ›
Better Math Teaching Network
The Nellie Mae Education Foundation has partnered with the American Institutes for Research to create the Better Math Teaching Network for Algebra I teachers in New England. The NIC (Networked Improvement Community) will work together with researchers and practitioners to use tested best practices to continually improve their craft around teaching student-centered math. They are… Read More ›
Nurturing Growth Mindsets: Six Tips From Carol Dweck
This video is from Carol Dweck’s keynote address at EdWeek’s Leaders to Learn From event in Washington. Dweck addresses her task of correcting misconceptions about her research and its applications in schools. This Education Week article synthesizes her main points and illustrates the concern that people haven’t fully understood every dimension of Carol Dweck’s growth mindset… Read More ›